Menu

Spoiled

20 December 2011

And just like that, classes are over. The CISA exam is over. Suddenly I have nothing to do. The books are sold, the papers stacked away in the closet. I took the snowshoes out a few times but I don’t have much to do, really, other than working 8 – 5 every day. I can sleep in and still have a lot of time left when I get home at night. I kind of like it.

Saturday was another of those days. I slept in (past 7am) then went with a friend to the skating rink next door. They were closed to the public so we had a long lunch and went back later. In the evening I went on a snowy hike which was just wonderful.

This is snow in the park next to my house on Friday. It’s cold here.

Snow was forecast for all day Sunday, so I loaded up the mountain bike and drove 100 miles and dropped down 6,000 feet—to where the weather was in the upper 60s and trails were dry and fast. I found some very nice trails and spectacular desert scenery. Mostly, though, I enjoyed tooling through the desert on the bike. I was paranoid of flat tires due to all the cactus but all went well. I did run my front wheel through a “snowball” (no idea what the proper name, or even proper nickname is—it looked like a snowball to me) cactus (or is it cacti? ..more than one pricker was involved) on the last mile but managed to get back to the car before the tire went flat.

somewhere out by Table Mesa… it’s warm here.

more trail, more cactus

the Agua Fria “river” below

the river up close

All things considered, the day was a success. I met a friend in Phoenix after riding, then drove back up to snow in Flagstaff. Yes, it was snowing when I got home so I started a fire in the fireplace and had a friend over for an evening of games and hot chocolate.

Today (Monday) I worked all day in IT at the business college. Students are gone and I was working on random maintenance and software updating around the building. I met a friend for a long lunch then quit early. Tomorrow I’ll try to work a full day.